Phonological Process Disorder

Summary of Interpretation: Given the information provided in Interpretation A, the clinician diagnosed Kara-Lynn with a severe phonological disorder. This diagnosis was made based on evidence provided by testing results, clinician observations, and speech analyses. Kara-Lynn demonstrated phoneme collapses into /d/ in place of stops (/p/, /t/, /k/, /g/), fricatives (/s/, /z/, /θ/, /ð/), and some consonant clusters (/tr/, /gr/) across all word positions. For example, Kara-Lynn produced /diə/ for “seal,” /dædɚ/ for “treasure,” and /dədudɚ/ for “computer.” Kara-Lynn also presented with active phonological processes of final consonant deletion (/fɪ/ for “fish”), cluster reduction (/tul/ for “school”), vocalization (/ɛləkə/ for “helicopter”), and deaffrication (/ʃi/ for “cheese”). She also presented with inconsistent patterns of initial-consonant deletion (/ɑʊps/ for “house”, /ɪʒ/ for “bridge”). In most instances, Kara-Lynn presented with both final consonant deletion and another phonological process, which markedly impacted her speech intelligibility, as when she produced /lɑʊ/ for “clown,” demonstrating both final consonant deletion and cluster reduction. She also expressed a high percentage of CV (27%) and CVC (29%) syllable and word shapes, with little other variation. Analysis of Kara-Lynn’s speech sample revealed similar errors exhibited during formal assessment, including phoneme collapse into /d/, high occurrences of initial and final consonant deletion and cluster

phonology - rules relating to the sounds of words and their constituent vowels and consonants.

The observation began with a review of what phonological awareness means. According to Chard, D.J. & Dickson, S.V. (2018), it is being aware of the fact that oral language is made up of many smaller units, such as words and syllables. In order to be successful at reading and writing language, an individual must develop skills in phonological awareness. Teaching students to rhyme is very important also because it is one of the ways students show that they have an awareness of phonological awareness. An example of rhyming is when a word is broken down by a single letter or combination of letter sounds such as the word chop would be broken into the onset: ch and rime: op. Students must

Phonological awareness involves the detection and manipulation of sounds at three levels of sound structure: (1) syllables, (2) onsets and rimes, and (3) phonemes.

Kara-lynn is a 3 year; 6 month old female presenting with a severe phonological disorder. Her results from testing indicate that her speech intelligibility is significantly reduced due to multiple phoneme collapses into /d/ of the following phonemes and consonant clusters: /p/, /g/, /k/, /s/, /z/, /θ/, /ð/, /tr/,and /gr/. In addition, the use of multiple phonological processes, including: final consonant deletion, initial consonant deletion, cluster reduction, vocalization, and deaffrication also significantly contribute to her reduced intelligibility. Her speech intelligibility in known context was calculated to be 64%, which is low for a child who is 3 years; 6 months(consider adding reference). Reduced intelligibility can impact a child’s ability to communicate wants and needs, making Kara-Lynn’s speech intelligibility an area of need.

We will assess this skill using The Phonological Awareness Profile by Robertson and Salter, a criterion-referenced assessment (1995). Criterion-referenced assessments are not used to compare students’ performance with each other, but rather to evaluate the student’s mastery in a specified subject. Such tests are designed to provide information for instruction as well. Only the phonological awareness subtest will be administered to Chloe. This subtest has the following tasks: rhyming, segmentation, isolation, deletion, substitution, and blending. The tasks are composed of the following:

The components of the Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach were developed from theories of phonological development, principles of cognitive psychology, and ongoing research in phonological acquisition (Hodson, 2006). Hodson proposes that children who are highly unintelligible would benefit from a treatment program that targets pattern errors in systematic cycles and uses auditory bombardment in combination with practice activities during therapy sessions. Clinicians interested in employing this method could benefit from research that answers the question- “is the cycles approach more effective than the traditional articulation therapy approach in the treatment of children who are highly

An example of phonological awareness is a child being able to recognize that “sat” and “hat” rhyme. When a child is asked what rhymes with “sat” they should be able to produce a word such as “cat”.

The EDUX 9930 class allowed me the flexibility to choose a topic that was specific to speech pathology. I used the hours of class time to catch up on the most recent research completed through the American Speech and Hearing Association, watch in-services on multiple speech related courses, and listen to webinars that addressed disabilities that affected speech skills. It is important for speech pathologist to stay current with evidence-based practices that will help students make the most progress in the shortest amount of time. I work with students in kindergarten through fourth grade so several of the topics that I focused on were in depth articles on phonological awareness and reading during the primary grades. I will recap some of my

1. ELL students need to be familiar with the sounds of English before they can develop phonological awareness. 2. Instruction needs to be explicit, modifications made, and practice needs to be given when needed. 3. Once phonological awareness has developed in any language, then it can be transferred to other languages that are learned.  4. Teachers should frequently model the production of sounds. 5. Beginning readers should get help to learn to identify sounds in short words.

Even though advanced cochlear implant (CI) and hearing aid (HA) technology is making tremendous strides in the DHH community, these hearing devices still cannot completely restore normal hearing or fully represent all aspects of normal speech sounds. Therefore, children within this population are potentially at a higher risk for speech disorders, speech delays, or language difficulties. The acquisition of phonological awareness (PA) and PA abilities is an important developmental step in speech and language. Moreover, PA skills have been shown to significantly affect early literacy abilities in normal hearing children. PA is commonly defined as the conscious ability

To measure children’s phonological awareness, teachers should look at children’s ability with different skills. For example, a child with strong phonological awareness is able to understand and can use, alliteration, the concept of spoken word, rhyme, syllable blending and syllable segmenting. Children start to read by listening others, and then recognizing sound in words, sounding words out for themselves and recognizing familiar words, so it is important for children to learn the phonological awareness because it can help kids to become a successful reader.

Within current research, it is acknowledged that phonological impairment may result in dyslexia. A study by Lobier, Zoubrinetzky, and Valdois (2012) suggests that while phonological impairment may be the root cause in some dyslexic patients, visual processing deficits may play a significant role in dyslexia, especially in patients without phonological difficulties. More specifically, the research aimed to support the hypothesis that the “underlying impairment responsible for the VA span deficit is visual, not verbal” (2012, p. 768). To support the hypothesis, the study was designed to compare the performance of typically-developing children and dyslexic children on visual attention span tasks with verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Non-verbal stimuli were included to demonstrate the absence of

Speech-language pathology is a challenging yet rewarding career path. There are many things to consider before choosing this career, including salary, responsibilities, education, and qualities just to name a few. A speech-language pathologist works directly with the client or patient to provide support and care. Like any other job, there are some issues that cause concern for those considering this career field. In speech-language pathology, the main issue is the high caseload/workload, which can cause people to not want to enter into this career. Even though this problem is major, the benefits of the career outweigh this potential issue. Speech-language pathology is a tremendously rewarding career to enter into.

“Phonological disorders in children can result from physical or organic causes or may be functional in nature ("Phonological disorders in," 2013)”. Children with a phonological disorder may experience a higher risk for reading and writing disabilities. “If left unresolved, phonological disorders have long-term consequences that may interfere with an individual's future social, academic, and vocational well-being, largely resulting from persistent, reduced intelligibility of speech ("Phonological disorders in," 2013).”